19 July 2024
Anon
[FYI request #26927 email]
Kia ora
Your Official Information Act request, reference: GOV-032554
Thank you for your email of 22 May 2024, asking for the following information under the Official
Information Act 1982 (the Act):
I am writing to request copies of general contractual agreements between ACC and external legal
counsel for representation on reviews, appeals or any other matters pertaining to conflicts with
claimants.
I request all internal policies, rules, guidelines, process, memos, and all other documents, pertaining
to:
(1) When to hire external legal counsel to assist with disputes with claimants; and
(2) Conditions of the contractual agreement; and
(3) Required notifications to claimants that external legal counsel has been contracted to represent
ACC and the nature and limits to that representation (for what purpose); and
(4) Required notification to claimants as to what information ACC will be sharing with the external
legal counsel (e.g., specific to a claim, complaint on claim, review or Court litigation); and
(5) In what instances it is appropriate for ACC employees to cc external legal counsel into
communications with claimants; and
(6) How a claimant may obtain the service agreement between ACC and the external legal counsel,
to ensure that ACC employees are not sharing information outside of the contracted agreement.
Our response I refer to ACC’s letter to you dated 8 July 2024, which explains in detail why ACC asked you on 2 July 2024
for information about yourself and the reasons for this official information request.
In your email of 3 July 2024, you declined to provide the further information ACC requested because you
did not consider ACC was entitled to ask for it. Since our second letter on 8 July, you have still not provided
the information sought.
Today is the last of the 20 working days in which ACC may respond to your official information request. For
the reasons set out below, ACC is declining your request.
ACC’s reasons now to decline your request are that:
• ACC has recently received a large number of closely related official information requests that also
appear to be made by or on behalf of the same person. At least 20 requests were made from your
account on FYI.org.nz to ACC in a short timeframe (between May and July 2024). Many of these
were about the same topics. Other requests written in the same way, about the same topics as
your requests, and sent around the same time, have been made from other anonymous FYI
accounts. In total, there were at least 40 requests made to ACC in a short timeframe.
• These information requests require considerable expense and effort for ACC to respond to. ACC
estimates that it is currently allocating more than the equivalent of one full time employee to
GOV-032554 Page 1 of 2
respond to each of these requests separately, despite the fact that they seem closely related. It
would likely require further effort to produce all of the information sought in each of these
requests.
• This request seems to be one of these 40 related requests. Because you have not provided ACC
with information asked for to confirm whether your request is one of many related requests, ACC
has decided that your request is probably one of these many related requests.
• The way that you, or people acting for you, appear to have asked for a wide range of information in
many separate requests rather than include all questions in one request, interferes with ACC’s
ability to determine whether and how it might be able to apply various provisions of the Official
information Act to deal with your request. Those provisions relate to whether the requests taken as
a whole require substantial collation or research so as to:
o allow ACC to decline some or all of the requests under s18(f) of the Act;
o consider combining your request with any other requests made by you under s18A(2) of
the Act;
o fully to consider fixing a charge for providing the documents concerned under s15 and
s18A(1) of the Act.
• Because your request appears to be part of a wider course of conduct making numerous official
information requests in a way that prevents ACC from applying the parts of the Official Information
Act that protect agencies from being put to unreasonable effort and expense in responding to
official information requests, ACC considers that your request is frivolous or vexatious in terms of
s18(h) of the Act.
• Your entire request is therefore refused.
If ACC is wrong and your request is not one among many related requests then please let me know
urgently, or if you prefer, take the issue to the Ombudsman in the way set out at the end of this message.
ACC sought the same information from each of the requestors in as many of the related requests as it has
been able to identify and has not received that information from any of them.
If you have any questions about this response, please get in touch
You can email me at
[email address]. If you are not happy with this response, you can also
contact the Ombudsman
via [email address] or by phoning 0800 802 602. Information
about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz. Ngā mihi
Christopher Johnston
Manager Official Information Act Services
Government Engagement
GOV-032554 Page 2 of 2
Document Outline
